Dead In Bed

Dead in Bed Syndrome is a very big concern for diabetics and parents of diabetic kids.

Essentially, of the small number of T1 diabetics under the age of 40 who die in their sleep, 1 in 20 die of an unknown cause that might be hypoglycaemia, but we don’t know because blood sugar levels drop upon death.

Jade Diabetes seeks to reduce this risk by

• Calculating accurate doses
• Tracking insulin on board (insulin remaining, also called Active Insulin) very accurately
• Predicting blood sugar levels and warning of pending hypos
• Supporting the use of 1/2 and 0.1 unit insulin pens (not syringes) for greater dosing accuracy, especially for children who tend to require very small doses

Futher background reading:

• Diabetes Journal 1999 – Dead-in-Bed Syndrome in Young Diabetic Patients – one of the initial reports
• Health Central – balanced, re-states as ‘approximately 1 in 20 apparently healthy younger people (under about age 40 or 50) who have T1DM die in their sleep from unknown causes that might be hypoglycemia-related‘
• Children with Diabetes – dismissive and downplays statistics, but still advocates increasing night time target blood sugars to avoid overnight hypos